Police arrested a twenty-nine-year-old man on Sunday afternoon after finding him in a stormwater drain near Bloemfontein’s Central Park area following an alleged killing.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Thabo Covane said officers from Thabure-Parkweg police station responded to reports of a suspicious person in a drainage tunnel beneath the Central Park Complex at about 3 pm.
Officers found the man naked in the drain and immediately arrested him.
Search leads to the victim’s body
“Members reacted swiftly, and an African male was found laying naked in the stream with the skull in his hands and was immediately placed under arrest,” Covane said.
After the arrest, police received further information about an earlier attack in the same area.
Officers searched along a nearby stream, where they later found the body of a man who had been killed.
Covane said police linked the discovery to the suspect found earlier in the drainage tunnel.
During the arrest, the suspect told officers that he committed the killing to prove he was “the messiah”, Covane said.
Murder case opened in Bloemfontein
Police have opened a murder case at the Heidedal police station, along with an additional charge of violating a corpse.
The Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court is expected to hear the suspect’s case soon.
